Table 3.
Simple regression models examining the associations between food insecurity and mental health indicators of college students in Lebanon aged 18–25 years (n 745), 2021a
| β (95 % CI) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) | p-valueb | General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) | p-valueb | World Health Organization Index-5 (WHO-5) | p-valueb | |
| Food insecurity | 4·2 (3·2, 5·3) | <0.001*** | 3·6 (2·7, 4·5) | <0.001*** | −11·8 (−15·2, −8·4) | <0.001*** |
| Socioeconomic & lifestyle correlates | ||||||
| Age | −0·2 (−0·40, −0·62) | <0.01** | −0·24 (−0·38, −0·95) | 0.001** | 0·53 (−0·003, 1·1) | |
| Gender: Male (Ref) | ||||||
| Female | −0·84 (−2·01, 0·33) | −0·28 (−1·26, 0·71) | −1·19 (−4·78, 2·40) | |||
| Non-binary | −0·15 (−2·66, 2·36) | 1·34 (−0·67, 3·36) | 1·15 (−6·30, 8·59) | |||
| University: Public (Ref) | ||||||
| Private | −1·10 (−2·58, 0·37) | 0·04 (−1·307, 1·39) | 3·96 (−0·99, 8·91) | |||
| Mother's education level Intermediate or less (Ref) | ||||||
| High school | 1·3 (−0·50, 3·1) | 0·36 (−0·65,1·4) | −0·22 (−3·9, 3·5) | |||
| University degree or higher | 0·43 (−1·3, 2·1) | 0·11 (−0·85, 1·1) | −0·12 (−3·6, 3·4) | |||
| Mother's employment status Unemployed (Ref) | ||||||
| Employed/Self-employed | −1·1 (−2·2, −0·01) | <0.05* | −0·76 (−1·7, 0·22) | 2·4 (−1·2, 5·9) | ||
| Household monthly income (LBP)c <2 000 000 (<250 USD) (Ref) | ||||||
| 2 000 000–5 000 000 (250–625 USD) | −1·6 (−3·1, −0·11) | <0.05* | 1·1 (−0·01, 2·3) | −2·6 (−6·8, 1·5) | ||
| >5 000 000 (>625 USD) | −2·5 (−4·0, −0·95) | <0.05* | −0·87 (−2·0, 0·30) | 5·7 (1·5, 10·0) | <0.01** | |
| Refuse to answer | −2·0 (−3·5, −0·44) | <0.05* | −1·7 (−2·8, −0·57) | <0.05* | 2·4 (−1·7, 6·6) | |
| Level of stress | 1·5 (1·3, 1·7) | <0.001*** | 1·6 (1·5, 1·8) | <0.001*** | −4·9 (−5·6, −4·3) | <0.001*** |
| Average sleeping (≥7 h/d) | −** | −2·8 (−3·9, −1·7) | 10·8 (6·8, 14·9) | |||
The PHQ-9 is a 9-item self-report depression scale that is used to screen and measure the severity of depression. The scoring of the PHQ-9 is obtained by the sum of the scores of the 9 items ranging from 0–37, 0–4, 5–9, 10–15, 15–19 and 20 or greater representing minimal, mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe depression.
The GAD-7 is a 7-item self-report anxiety scale that is used to screen and measure the severity of generalised anxiety disorders. The GAD-7 score is calculated by assigning scores of 0, 1, 2 and 3, to the response categories of ‘not at all’, ‘several days’, ‘more than half the days’ and ‘nearly every day’, respectively, and then adding together the scores for the seven questions. GAD-7 total score for the seven items ranges from 0 to 21. The WHO-5 well-being index measures current well-being. The raw score is calculated by totalling the figures of the five answers. The raw score ranges from 0 to 25, 0 representing worst possible and 25 representing the best possible quality of life. To obtain a percentage score ranging from 0 to 100, the raw score is multiplied by 4.
Average sleeping hours was removed from the PHQ-9 linear regression model as the PHQ-9 test consists of a question related to sleep.
β of the dependent variables (PHQ-9, GAD-7, WHO-5) are presented with 95 % CI using simple linear regression.
*p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001 to indicate significance between variables and mental health indicators.
1USD = 8000 LBP. This exchange rate at the time of the study.